Peter Rosenstein

My answer to the question: “Is being LGBTQ enough to earn your vote?” is no. It’s the same answer I would give on whether just being Generation X, a millennial, a woman, or other minority, is enough to get my vote. We need to know in detail what a candidate stands for, what they have done prior to running for the office they are seeking, and what they will do better than their opponents. I often ask a candidate looking for my support, “What are the first three bills you will introduce if you win?” Then I ask what they think they can accomplish better than their opponents. Voters should look at the entire field to decide who gets their vote.

I am talking about a Democratic primary. In the general election, any Democrat is better than today’s Republicans. Ranked choice voting, which I oppose, can also complicate your choices.

Once I know a candidate’s record of accomplishments, and thoughts on issues of importance to me, I then compare that to their opponent’s record and thoughts. Too often today candidates run without telling us what they will do once elected. As a policy wonk I want to know this prior to endorsing someone. I do recognize for many voters, it doesn’t matter.

I

remember when Barney Frank once used this quote speaking to the LGBTQ community, “If we aren’t at the table we will be on the menu.” In some ways, and in some situations, that is still true. In others, we have moved beyond that. In the United States Congress today, there are 13 members of the LGBTQ community, 11 in the House and two in the Senate. There are approximately 200 members of the Equality Caucus representing members who support the LGBTQ community. On June 21, 2023, they reintroduced the Equality Act, first introduced by Congresswoman Bella S. Abzug (D-N.Y.), who I worked for, in 1974. She was one of the leading allies fighting for then LGBT rights. I am not convinced one more member of the LGBTQ community in Congress would make a difference.

In the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries we had a very smart openly gay candidate, Pete Buttigieg. While I didn’t think he was ready to be president, I co-chaired fundraisers for him fervently believing he represented the community well, and needed to be heard. I differentiated wanting him to be heard, and voting for him. Thankfully, we have some great organizations, like Victory Fund, whose mission is to both endorse, and raise funds, for LGBTQ candidates. While I strongly support their work, I don’t necessarily support each candidate they endorse. In today’s complex world I need to know more before I endorse a candidate.

Because we have in many ways moved the needle forward, despite some recent court decisions, there can be Democratic primaries today where an LGBTQ candidate is running against another LGBTQ candidate, or an African American, a Latino, an Asian, a person with a disability, or a woman. We know each community may have a stake in electing their person. So as informed voters, we need to move beyond ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or sexual identity, to determine whom we will support.

We need to look at records and platforms. For me, a gay man, if all candidates support the Equality Act, full inclusion, and the full panoply of the LGBTQ community’s rights, along with having a record of speaking out on these issues, I will look at all of them equally. I want to know where they are on climate change, education, public safety, immigration, and a host of other issues that will make a difference in our world. If they are running for national office today, what do they think about support for Ukraine, and their views on our military readiness? At all levels of government what are their positions on voting rights, and a woman’s right to choose? Do they believe in, and will they stand up for, the separation of church and state? Others may make their decisions on a different set of issues.

So, deciding whom to vote for today is complicated. I will endorse and vote for the person I think can make the most progress on the issues I care about.

Day after day we see Republicans trying to outdo each other in how vile and frightening they can be. From the fight over the debt ceiling, to their presidential primary, they continue to try to take the nation backwards. 

In the debt ceiling fight, they clearly say, “We will protect the wealthy in our country at all costs, and instead will cut, or eliminate, programs to help the poor.” The far-right wing crazies like Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Chip Roy (R-Texas), and Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), are threatening their own speaker, Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), with the loss of his job if he doesn’t go along with what they want. Now that a deal has been cut, we will see how they, and left-leaning Democrats who have been putting pressure on President Biden to reject all Republican demands, will vote. These are facts of life in our nation today. Any person with a shred of decency should be embarrassed. I don’t envy President Biden for what he has to do to keep the nation from defaulting on its debts. The political reality is that he had to give in on some issues. Democrats should not fault him, but rather blame Republicans. 

It is scary when you see what Republicans are doing around the nation with regard to abortion rights, civil rights, and LGBTQ rights. One recent example being Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis proudly signing the bill making abortion only legal until six weeks. There are women who don’t even know by then they are pregnant. Also, it’s time men start understanding how this impacts them. Women need to remind the fathers what their responsibility will be if they both aren’t ready for a child but are forced to have one.

One ignorant parent in Florida complained, and according to politico was able to have “A Miami-Dade elementary school limit some access to Amanda Gorman’s presidential inauguration poem, ‘The Hill We Climb,’ complaining that it contained indirect “hate messages.” This is insanity and the clear result of Trump’s impact on the culture of the nation. He made it OK to once again have hatred spewed from the public square, frightening decent people. 

Like the threats against Target. CNN reported the company was “removing some products that celebrate Pride month after the company and its employees became the focus of a “volatile” anti-LGBTQ campaign. The company told the Wall Street Journal that people have confronted workers in stores, knocked down Pride merchandise displays and put threatening posts on social media with video from inside stores. Some people have thrown Pride items on the floor, Target spokesperson Kayla Castaneda told Reuters. CNN went on to report “Prominent right-wing activists, Republican political leaders, and conservative media outlets, have focused their attention on a women’s swimsuit that was described as “tuck friendly” for its ability to conceal male genitalia. Misinformation spread on social media that it was marketed to children, which it was not.” Again, insanity, promoted by the right wing. The people doing this should be arrested and prosecuted.

It only gets worse as Republican candidates running for president try to outdo each other with anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, trying to improve their poll numbers. DeSantis can tout his “don’t say gay legislation.” Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), a Black man, who says the country is not racist, touts his opposition to marriage equality. Then there is Mike Pence who will quote the Bible to you, claiming it tells us how terrible it is to be gay. 

The Daily News recently reported “Following last year’s more than 220 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced across the country, a poll by The Trevor Project found 71% of LGBTQ youth — and 86% trans and nonbinary youth — said they were negatively impacted by the flurry of proposals to restrict their rights.” They went on to report, “As of May 23, more than 520 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced in statehouses across the country, according to the Human Rights Campaign. More than 220 of those specifically restrict the rights of transgender and nonbinary people. These are all Republican bills.

This will continue unabated if we don’t defeat Republicans everywhere. In sharp contrast, Democrats in the Maryland legislature, led by Delegates David Moon (D-Montgomery County) and Luke Clippinger (D-Baltimore County) and State Senator Howard Lam (D-Baltimore and Howard Counties), managed to repeal the states sodomy law and pass gun-control measures.

Republicans will continue to carry out their agenda of hate across the nation unless we say with our votes, “We won’t take this anymore.” The United States is better than this and we will show the world we will not tolerate hate; we will fight it.  

Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist. He writes regularly for the Blade.

I am always surprised when I hear someone proudly say “after two years Pride is back!” If you are ‘out’ and didn’t have Pride in yourself and your community for the past two years there is a real problem and it’s not about missing the parades and parties.

Pride needs to be about having Pride in who you are, being comfortable in your own skin, with a willingness to be open and ‘out’ sharing with others who you are. Even today, that’s not always easy everywhere. Clearly it is easier than when I was young back in the dark ages. I knew I was gay, not knowing the term, but knew I was attracted to boys. When going through puberty in the early 1960s I felt as if I was the only one who felt that way and it embarrassed me. I managed to hide it from myself, often convincing myself it was phase, most of the time until I left New York City and moved to D.C.  Even then it took me a few years to come out.

I was 34 going to my first Pride event and hid behind a tree in Dupont Circle, afraid someone would take my picture. Today I think Pride parades are most important for people who are still struggling with their identity to enable them to see there are many others like themselves and being LGBTQ is OK. In June 2021, friends participated in a walk from Dupont Circle to Freedom plaza and told me how great it was to celebrate Pride in a simpler way without all the parades and parties just walking together in sisterhood and brotherhood. I missed that walk as it was the day of my friend Clark Ray’s memorial service. Clark lived a life we all admired with his husband Aubrey and their four adopted children. No one was a better role model for younger members of the community everywhere, for what it meant to be ‘out and proud,’ compassionate and successful. 

Don’t get me wrong I’m not opposed to parades and parties. When I was younger, I fully participated and still think it’s great to see all the people who do. I was even honored as a Pride Hero in 2016, riding in a convertible at the front of the parade — a long way from hiding behind a tree in 1981. 

But in these difficult times parades and parties must have a purpose. They should focus on the next generations and show them what it’s like to be part of a strong, successful community. It is the reason I fought so hard for marriage equality. At the time I was asked if I would marry and answered “most likely no, I don’t even have a boyfriend.” Yet to me it was important every young boy and girl who realized they were gay or lesbian knew they could be married and live a full and open life like all their straight friends. 

Pride month is about celebrating how far we have come, and also recognizing how far we still have to go. Today we must understand if the Supreme Court can overturn Roe v. Wade, it can overturn marriage equality and even interracial marriage. All things a pig like Alito and his co-signers of the leaked draft opinion on Roe v. Wade can claim are not explicitly written into the Constitution. 

The slogan for all Pride parades in the United States this year should be “Show your Pride by voting!” I hope each Pride event across the nation has that as a focus. Each Pride event needs multiple opportunities for people to register to vote. 

I consider myself lucky to live in D.C. with politicians who support me and a large open and welcoming community. Yet I am well aware not everyone has that luxury. It means those of us who do must lead the way and be examples for what it means to support each other and support every minority community. We are all in this together. Women may not be a minority but too many in the world still treat them as such and we must support them. 

Maybe this year we ask every participating float, in every parade, to have a sign saying ‘Show your Pride by voting!’ If we stand shoulder to shoulder, committing to each other to work at it and vote, we can continue to move forward making progress toward what the Constitution calls “A more perfect union.”

Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist. He writes regularly for the Blade.

When you study the field of politics, it is represented as “the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status.” An accepted definition of a politician is “a person who is professionally involved in politics, especially as a holder of or a candidate for an elected office.”

Politics, if done well and honestly, should not be thought of as dirty and neither should the politician who practices politics. One can be an activist and practice politics without being a politician. But I find it amusing when a candidate running for office says they are not a politician. They may not have been one before they announced their candidacy, but once they have, they are a politician. I believe the majority of politicians in office, or running for office, are doing it for the right reasons.

It is because the term politician has become a dirty word that people are running for office declaring they are not really politicians. An example is the new Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. The headline in the New York Times is “Alvin Bragg Says He’s Not a Politician, Is That the Root of His Trouble?” In fairness Bragg says he shouldn’t act like a politician, which indicates he thinks being a politician is a bad thing. 

Bragg, who ran in a primary and then in a general election and now holds office, is by any definition a politician and there is nothing wrong with that. Decisions he makes will be both political in nature and have political ramifications. Whether it is to prosecute, or not prosecute, Donald Trump; or whether his office will cease to seek jail and prison time for all but the most serious crimes, those are in many ways political decisions. They can be political even if based on the facts as he sees them at the time. The reality is on what appeared to be his initial views on both of these issues, he is now vacillating based on the political winds he is facing. He is entitled to change his mind, as can any politician, as long as they don’t give up their principles. 

I keep hearing U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland say he will decide what to do about Trump and his acolytes involved in the Jan. 6 insurrection without regard to any politics. Anyone who actually believes that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn you can buy. 

We often only hear about sleazy politics or sleazy politicians. They make for great click-bait journalism. But in reality, they are in the minority. 

Just consider the politics of fighting for equal justice and economic equality, and the politicians fighting to make them both a reality. We have moved far from what the framers of our constitution wrote to make our country more equal for all. That was accomplished through war in one case, but it was also done through politics and by politicians. Do we have a long way to go? Of course. But we must take heart when we hear Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, now the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, talk about her family and saying, “My family went from segregation to the Supreme Court in one generation.” That, of course is a tribute to her family, but also to politics and politicians.  

There have been many times I disagreed with the politics of some groups and the politicians who seem to represent them. But I must accept some people have legitimate views, in their own eyes, different from mine. While I nearly always disagree with Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Ala.) and Mitt Romney (R-Utah) it must be recognized they not only voted for Judge Jackson but made strong and resonating statements in support of her. 

So it will be important, if we are to move our country back on the track many want to see it on, not to ascribe a negative implication to all politics and politicians we disagree with. We will never agree with all that is done in the name of politics or by every politician. However, we must accept decent people can disagree and the other side is not always being sleazy. We need to learn to respect each other and try to treat each other with dignity.

Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist. He writes regularly for the Blade.

President Biden is a president who makes us proud. He clearly stepped up to the plate in difficult times. COVID, inflation, Ukraine are just a few of the volatile issues he is managing. 

When it comes to international issues like Ukraine, the president represents the United States, not Democrats or Republicans. Yet today we are so divided there are Republicans willing to attack him trying to undermine our standing in the world. It was reported last week, “More than two dozen Senate Republicans demand Biden do more for Ukraine after voting against $13.6 billion for Ukraine.” One total jackass, Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.), has managed to infuriate even some of the most evil members of his own party when he “called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a ‘thug’ and the Ukrainian government ‘incredibly evil’.”

It is one thing to attack the president on domestic issues. But today we have a Republican Party hoping to see Biden fail without regard to the fact it would hurt the American people they have been elected to serve. Some individual Republicans have stepped up to the plate on one issue or another. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) did so on the Jan. 6 committee. Yet most act like they are the dregs of society. Some so outrageous they manage to embarrass the party that has shown they are immune to being embarrassed, having stood by Trump. A new meme surfaced last week about Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) suggesting she represents what happens when ‘the ventriloquist dies and the dummy keeps talking.’

 President Biden is showing how his years of experience in government, from the Senate to the VP’s office, are enabling him to effectively lead when working with NATO and our other allies. He has surrounded himself with some of the brightest, including National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. He is wisely choosing to get advice from experts like Fiona Hill, among others, an expert on Russia and Putin. In 2013, Hill wrote a well-respected book, “Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin.” This week, Biden is in Brussels to meet with other NATO leaders for the first time since Russia invaded Ukraine. He will solidify the work that has been done and reinforce the close working relationships he has reestablished with our allies after four years of Trump working to tear them apart.  

One of the things I most respect about our president is his willingness to speak truthfully to the American people. To talk about some of what we will face at home including rising gas prices and continued inflation, as we support the people of Ukraine in their fight for their country and democracy. Biden has been attacked by those who think he is doing too much and those who think he is doing too little. That is the divide in our country we can lay at the feet of Donald Trump. Thankfully our allies, and the overwhelming member nations of the United Nations, are supporting what we are doing. 

All this will play out as Americans go to the polls in November 2022. Whatever the situation is at home, and around the world, at that time we will see if a majority of the country is willing to support the president and elect Democrats up and down the ballot. We will see if they give the president a Democratic Congress so he can move forward more of his agenda for America. I believe when it comes down to it, they will. They will understand America has reclaimed its position as a leader in the world and we can move a domestic agenda forward that will benefit all. An agenda to bring children out of poverty and provide all with good jobs, quality healthcare, and a good education. Most Americans understand we must do something to fight climate change and ensure equal justice and opportunity for all. 

I am an optimist and believe that optimism in the American people is not misplaced. Since I first stood on a street corner in New York City at the age of nine handing out flyers for Adlai Stevenson for president; to running a local storefront after school in 1960 supporting JFK for president; after being in winning and losing campaigns, that optimism remains. Somehow the American people find it in them to do the right thing even if it takes much longer than I want it to.